A Test Of One's Faith
by gawilliams
Summary: In the aftermath of Vincent's death, Booth finds his Faith in God in doubt.  Father Mitch pays a visit.


_I am continually drawn to the episode _Hole In The Heart_ for some reason. The power of the episode is compelling, and I don't think it is possible to be able to plumb the depths of the various characters in relation to the events of that episode. For this story, which is not really a part of my earlier story _Forging Ahead_, I bring back my original character Father Mitch one more time to see how Booth is handling the aftermath of Vincent's death two weeks after the fact. I hope you enjoy it. Gregg._

_Disclaimer: I don't own, or profit from, these characters of franchise. No copyright infringement is intended._

Seeley Booth was not in a good place, emotionally, right at that moment. He'd gotten home to his apartment and looked around for something to occupy his mind, and nothing seemed to hold any interest. Bones, who he was now at long last in a relationship with, was at a museum in Boston doing an authentication. He'd originally planned on going, but a bump in a court date had kept him here in DC. She called him a couple of times during the day, and every evening, but it wasn't the same.

Also, he had been having serious difficulty in dealing with the loss of Vincent. The young Squintern had been a good kid who was always wanting to do anything he could to help out. That desire to help had ultimately cost him his life when Booth had handed him his cell phone. Booth had thought he was being truthful when he told Sweets that he didn't feel guilty or responsible over it, but he now knew it was a lie. He did feel responsible, and it was slowly tearing him down. The last two weeks since it had happened had been bearable since he was now with Bones, but with her out of town he was not holding it together very well. As he was about to order some Thai for delivery, the someone knocked on his door. Opening it he was surprised to see his Priest, and good friend, Father Mitch.

"Mitch!" Booth smiled. He let the other man in. He noticed that Mitch was holding a large pizza box and a six pack of a very good beer.

"I haven't seen you at Mass or confession for a couple of weeks and decided to see if there was anything wrong," Mitch told his friend.

"Forgot the collar, Mitch?" Booth asked, noting that his friend was in jeans and an Eagles jersey.

"I always have my collar on, whether literally or figuratively, Seeley," Mitch replied, setting the pizza down on the coffee table along with the beer.

"Well, the Phillies are playing tonight, so we can watch the game," Booth offered. He was on edge, and it was bothering him. This was Mitch. A damn good friend from college who became a priest and was now Booth's priest. But Booth was having trouble with his own relationship with God at the moment and wasn't sure that a visit with Mitch could make things right this time.

"Sounds good," Mitch told him, keeping a keen eye on his friend. Seeley Booth was Mitch's favorite parishioner, and not because they went to college together and were good friends. No, Seeley was the one parishioner that Mitch could count on to do his utmost to live a moral life, and was the first one to confess to his shortcomings in that regard. Mitch considered Seeley the model Catholic, the kind of person the Church should hold up as representing the best in the Faith. A perfect, imperfect man who strives for redemption and acceptance.

For the entire game it was like they were back in college. Both were devoted sports fans, and both loved the teams coming out of Philadelphia. On this game they were in the euphoric state after a large win by Philly 8-2 over the Nationals. They cheered the great plays, and derided the bad calls by the umps. Booth had excused himself midway through the game to take a call from Bones, which helped him somewhat, and when he got back to the game was able to devote more attention to the game and the company.

"So why haven't you been to Mass and confession?" Mitch asked when the game was over and they were sipping their beers. The pizza had long since been devoured.

Booth sighed, his mind going back to when he had turned back and saw that not everyone was okay, and that Vincent had taken a bullet to the chest. He closed his eyes, the memory slamming his emotional dilemma right back to the forefront of his thoughts.

"Did you see in the news about the intern at the Jeffersonian who was killed by a sniper?" Booth asked, leaning back on the couch.

Mitch remembered it clearly. He'd seen it on the news and had spent some time trying to find out who all had been hurt, and to see if Seeley had been involved somehow. "I saw the news reports," he nodded.

"Vincent Nigel-Murray," Booth said the name softly. "A recovering alcoholic, actually, so I had something I could identify with him. Addiction."

"Have you started gambling again?" Mitch asked. He hated asking, but the fact that Seeley brought up the subject of addiction made it necessary.

"No," Booth said firmly. "I'm good on that score." He paused and sighed. "He was a good kid, ya know? He didn't deserve what happened to him, and the real bitch of it was that if I hadn't handed him my damn phone he wouldn't be dead now."

"How do you know that?" Mitch asked. He wanted Seeley to reveal as much as he could. It would help in getting to the main issue and that was his avoidance of his religion.

"Broadsky was trying to take me out," Booth said with resignation, as if it was somehow draining to even discuss it anymore. "I needed to know where he was and I handed the kid my phone so I could use the other one with a tracking app. Broadsky shot the one who answered the damn phone."

"Do you blame yourself?" Mitch pressed.

"No," Booth admitted. He wasn't completely convinced, but he could say with certainty that he did his job in using the app, and it was just a matter of Vincent being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He shuddered to think of what kind of a wreck he would be if he'd handed the phone to Bones.

"Do you blame Broadsky?" Mitch probed.

"I...I don't know," Booth whispered. He shut his eyes, desperate to shut out the horrible thought he'd been tempted by for two weeks now.

"Then who?"

"God," Booth revealed, saying it out loud for the first time. "I blame God, Mitch. The worst part of that is that Bones is an atheist and when she came to me crying and when she said that if there was a God he wouldn't have let Vincent die I said it doesn't work that way."

"But that's true, Seeley," Mitch assured him.

"I don't know if that's good enough for me anymore, Mitch," Booth sighed. "One of my junior agents asked me if Vincent was a friend of mine and I told her yes. It took that kid dying for me to realize just how much those interns mean to me personally. I felt like I did when Teddy Parker died. I asked myself what was the point of trying to have faith in God if God could allow good people to die so senselessly. It's one thing in war, and in an accident or natural disaster, but this? Nothing makes sense anymore."

"So you've avoided attending Mass and going to confession," Mitch observed the obvious.

"I don't know if I can in good conscience, and with an open enough heart," Booth admitted. "God deserves my Faith, not my doubts and anger."

"Do you read the Bible?" Mitch asked.

"I take time to read some every day," Booth told him.

"Do you understand all of it? Is all of it clear to you?"

"No," Booth chuckled. "There's a lot of it that seems vague and incomplete."

"Do you believe in what the Bible offers and reveals?"

"Yes," came the reply.

"Even now?"

"Yeah," Booth told his friend. "But that's different."

"How?" Mitch questioned. "What the Church teaches is a particular viewpoint of God's revealed truth, and mankind is free to agree or disagree with that viewpoint. But something that the Church teaches is that God loves all and as a result offers absolution of our sins through confession and penance. If you agree with that principle, then even a diminishment in your Faith is an acceptable issue for such absolution, even if it may not seem in the same category as sin _per se_. If you honor your personal belief system, and it's point of view, then avoidance because you have questions is not the answer."

"I'm not sure I understand all that," Booth sighed. This felt like on of those shrinky lectures that Sweets was always throwing out there.

"You're questions are good ones, Seeley, and given what has happened, and the way we try and describe God, they are perfectly natural," Mitch told him. "As a person with free will, you have every right to ask those questions. The Church offers possible answers, but it also offers a certain solace and comfort while you are looking for those answers to the elusive questions you have."

"But what if the questions never end?" Booth asked. That was his genuine fear. The teachings of Pops, and the Faith he had always had in God, were the two things that he genuinely believed grounded him and kept him from becoming just like Broadsky. Bones and Parker were the two things that kept his demons at bay and kept him from gambling. If his moral foundation and center were out of harmony, then what did he had left to be the person his son and Bones deserved?

"I'm a priest doing God's work, Seeley, and I have questions every day," Mitch admitted. "If I didn't have questions in the face of all that a priest is confronted with, then I'm of the opinion that I wasn't much of a priest. My questions show me that the mysteries of the world are still out there. For myself, God has designed those mysteries to test each of us. Not necessarily to test out Faith, but rather to test our soul."

"Great, I sure as hell flunked," Booth chuckled mirthlessly.

"Why? Because you were a sniper? I don't think so," Mitch countered. "Yes, you took a number of lives. You were a soldier and that is what soldiers are sometimes called upon to do. Many have issues with that, and never find a way to deal with those issues. You have by becoming an FBI agent and putting away murderers. You found a way to atone for the sin of killing that is materially effective distinct from any penance handed down in confession. I'd say that speaks of a soul who's innate goodness shines in God's presence. Sure you may make mistakes, and commit sins, like we all do, but you confess those sins regularly. You are contrite and repentant. Will God forgive you your hesitancy? Yes."

"But isn't going to Mass, confessing, and all of that somewhat hypocritical given my doubts?" Booth asked.

"Are you honestly penitent? Do you attend Mass and accept the sacrament with an open heart?" Mitch asked him.

"Of course," Booth replied firmly.

"Then as your Priest, and your friend, I don't consider it hypocritical," Mitch told him.

Booth knew that Mitch was one of the more moderately liberal priests out there, but that didn't take away from the fact that Mitch had never steered him wrong when it came to matters like this. If he said it wasn't hypocritical, then it wasn't hypocritical.

"Thanks, Mitch," Booth told him.

"Don't thank me, Seeley, thank your partner," Mitch told him.

"What?" Booth asked. "What's Bones have to do with this?"

"She called me the other day and said you were having some trouble with, and I quote, _**his imaginary friend**_," Mitch chuckled. "She's worried about you, Seeley. She knows what the Church means to you, and when you shy away from it, she knows something is wrong. She asked me if I could talk to you."

"She can read me better than I thought," Booth said, feeling a wave of love for Bones course through him. He'd needed this vague, yet deep, conversation with Mitch, and she'd known it and made it happen.

"So will I see you at Mass on Sunday?" Mitch asked as he stood up. He was confident that Seeley was back on the right track now.

"And confession right after," Booth acknowledged. "Now that Bones and me are together, I have a whole slew of stuff to confess to."

Mitch chuckled and clapped Booth on the shoulder as he opened the door. "You really are a pervert, Seeley," he told his friend.

"When it comes to Bones, I can live with that," Booth said with a wistful tone. He was missing her fiercely right now, and was going to be calling her the second the door closed.

"Trust what this is telling you, Seeley," Mitch pointed to Booth's heart. "That heart of yours won't let you down."

Booth closed the door and made his way to his cell phone. The last two weeks had been a miserable test of his faith, and one he would never wish on anyone, but the knowledge of what Bones had done for him, despite her own beliefs, was deeply humbling. He offered up a silent prayer for Vincent's soul, and also his thanks for what his life now had before it. He may still have questions, but now he knew he had the comfort of knowing he wasn't alone.

_A/N: Like all questions of faith and religion, the answers, and the discussions, are always inadequate in expressing the feelings and thoughts involved. I hope that this story allowed an insight into what may have gone through Booth's mind in dealing with the death of Vincent, and Bones comment on God's existence. I hope you all enjoyed this one, and the visit from Father Mitch. Gregg._


End file.
